Chapter 39: Chapter #38 | Edge of the Nova
Notes:
Midoriya watched his fellow students trickle out onto the field, the earliest ones fidgeting the most by the time the rest had joined them. "Alright, everyone." Midoriya projected his voice across the field. "It's the second week of April, and we have a lot of work to do if you're going to be in any shape when we begin combat and quirk lessons."
Tokage raised her hand, speaking when Midoriya gestured for her to do so. "When exactly will that be? 1-B was about to begin combat training with All Might when I got transferred." Class 1-A shuffled in place at the mention of All Might and a low growl could be heard coming from Toga. Tokage looked around, confused, even as Midoriya grunted.
"All Might is a moron. Let me answer your question with one of my own. Who here feels they can run two miles without stopping?" About half the class raised their hands. "And of you that raised your hands, how many feel they can do it without slowing down or stopping?" Several students lowered their hands. "Finally, how many of you think that you can do it in under ten minutes?"
Class 1-A jolted and finally, after Mashijiao dropped his hand, he was left with four. Midoriya narrowed his eyes at Iida. "Without your quirk, Iida." After a second, hesitating with indecision, Iida lowered his hand. Three and a half then. "Kyoka and Himiko can because I've pushed them during training for years. Todoroki, I'm sure, has had… training, as well." Todoroki stiffened and stared blankly forward. "The rest of you have work to do, because that's the minimum requirement for the new course." Mashijiao's face contorted in puzzlement. "You look confused, Mashijiao."
"Mmm. Isn't- isn't even the JSDF minimum requirement for males our age only sixteen minutes?" Eyes shifted to stare at Mashijiao as Midoriya raised an eyebrow. He blushed, tail twitching. "I thought about joining up before I decided to be a hero." He muttered the words, but Midoriya felt his assessment of the man raise even as he nodded.
"You are correct. Even with the outdated standards, the military minimum is much lower than mine." More muttering around the class. "But you aren't aiming to be military. You aren't aiming to be police. Technically, you aren't even aiming to be federal agents. You are aiming to be the supposed pinnacle of our society, the best of the best in the eyes of people who think you're supposed to be capable of defending them, no matter the odds. No matter the opponent. No matter the situation." Midoriya pinned the class with his gaze. "That begins with what you are going to consider to be overkill."
"And if we can't reach your minimum? Kero." The question came from a straight-faced Tsuyu, but the question was echoed in the minds of her fellow students. All of them were thinking of Aizawa's expulsion threat.
Midoriya shrugged. "You all will. This isn't something I expect you to reach in a week. Some of you will, of course, but not all of you. We'll work on it. We have three years. Three years to turn this class into young men and women capable of protecting what's in front of them. We'll be working on your fitness levels this week. Endurance, strength, flexibility, and balance are all things we'll be pushing this week. Next week, we'll start working on the basics of combat, as well as starting our lecture portion. We'll work on your quirks after that and on integrating them into your personal combat styles. Until then, however, no using your quirks. For now," Midoriya gestured to the tables behind him in the center of the field, "you'll all be working on fitness. Grab a canteen and clip it to your gym uniforms. There's one for each of you, and you'll be drinking at least two canteens worth before the end of the class. If you want or think you need more, drink it. Don't, however," Midorya pinned them all with a stare, "overdrink. None of you had better dehydrate, and if any of you end up with water toxemia, Recovery Girl will have all of our asses. Keep an eye on each other. Any questions?"
Ashido raised her hand and, voice full of hope, asked, "Since we're not starting lectures yet, does that mean the class is shorter?" Midoriya's smile was sharp when he chuckled.
"Not at all. You'll all be running for the next four hours with no breaks except for liquids." The class blanched and Kaminari began to sputter.
Tsunotori frowned. "How is possible? That doesn't sound health." Midoriya ignored the broken Japanese. It would get better the longer she was here, and it was close enough he could understand her. Before he could explain, Mezo, with an eye on the two large water coolers next to the canteens, asked his question.
"Would it have anything to do with the two different coolers, Professor?" Midoriya shuddered slightly.
"Observant of you. Yes, it does. But don't call me that. It's weird coming from the people who are still technically my classmates."
"You are also technically our teachers assistant, sir." Midoriya's eye twitched, but he sighed.
"Sir, if you have to. Aizawa's your professor for this class."
"Yes, sir."
Midoriya stared before speaking again. "As Mezo so aptly observed, the coolers have two different colors and have two different liquids. If you want normal water, go to orange. It's a bit tweaked with electrolytes and such, but it's fairly bog-standard."
Sero warily eyed the other cooler. "And the other one, Midoriya?"
"The red one is technically medical in nature, but is my personal recommendation. It'll help you along in the conditioning process. It'll help repair the torn muscle fibers from training, relieve fatigue, etcetera, etcetera. The drawback is that you are going to be very hungry after training if you use that one. If you want to use it, there is a waver beside it."
Kirishima spoke up this time. "Uh, not that it doesn't sound great, but are you actually recommending us doping?"
"Not in the slightest." Both Midoriya's eyes and voice were flat when he spoke. "And if any of the faculty here catch you doing so, you'll be expelled from the hero course. Am I understood?" The class nodded and he let the tension from the question bleed away. "The way it works, Kirishima, is through the accelerated use of your own bodies' available materials. Hence why I said you'd be hungry, but I suppose that was an understatement. If you use that, expect to find yourself eating somewhere in the realm of a fifteen thousand calorie dinner, followed by a five thousand calorie midnight snack." The class's eyes practically bulged out of their heads at even the prospect of that much food. "Come on, then. Grab your canteens and start running. Chop chop."
Much of the class hesitated after grabbing their canteens. Several, such as Sero, immediately went for the orange cooler. Others, such as Jiro and Toga, went straight for the red cooler. The class watched as they filled their canteen with the viscous liquid that came out. Jiro turned around to find eyes latching onto her and her canteen. She shrugged. "Midoriya wouldn't harm us. If he says it'll help, it'll help." Jiro clipped the canteen to her gym clothes before turning and taking off after Toga, who was already running.
…
Midoriya watched his classmates struggle to put one foot in front of the other with some small part of him feeling gleeful. The majority, however, just felt pity. If they were struggling just two hours in, they might lose a student or two by the time a week was up. It was Thursday, and their rest day wasn't until Sunday.
Phoenix's voice cut through his thoughts and overshadowed even the desperate panting of Kaminari and the angry swearing of Tokage. Izuku. There is a problem at the-
Midoriya's phone buzzed and interrupted her. He pulled it quickly, tapping for the call to come through. Only a handful of people had the number, and they wouldn't have called without a reason. The voice on the other end turned out to be the chief of the biotechnical division, Ishii Mai. "What's happening, Ishii?"
The question was short and to the point, just as he knew the stoic woman preferred. Just as he preferred. "Uraraka is waking up."
Midoriya's eyes widened slightly. Even if someone had been paying attention, they wouldn't have noticed. Only those closest to him had a chance of that. "What. How the hell? That's way too early. Fuck. I'll be right there."
Aizawa was peering at him through squinted eyes from the tree he was resting against. "Just where ar-"
"Uraraka."
"Go. I'll make sure they finish the class out."
…
Hatsume was tossing Midoriya his lab coat even as he stepped into the building. They strode across the lobby and up the stairs at a brisk pace. Part of Midoriya regretted at that moment installing as many security checkpoints as he did, even though part of him knew they were important.
Midoriya was calling for a status report even as he walked into his branch of the building. "Sprite, why the hell is she waking up."
A young, cheerfully panicked voice came from the speakers as Midoriya moved directly towards Uraraka's tank. Sprite had been delegated the tasks of a medical A.I. when Midoriya and Hatsume had created the second generation. Phoenix could only handle so much at once, and having subordinates of her own specialized in their respective fields had provided the much-needed relief to her A.I. core.
"Something is flushing her system as fast as I can give her barbiturates. Pentobarbital, phenobarbital, thiopental, secobarbital. I'm trying multiple, but they aren't having any effect. It's like the drugs disappear as soon as they get into Uraraka's system."
Alarms sounded as Uraraka's eyelids fluttered. Midoriya was already giving the orders to drain the tank and pull her when she started thrashing. He was disconnecting the attached wiring when she started seizing. "Fuck," Midoriya practically growled the word, even as he set Uraraka down on the gurney and rolled her onto her side. "Ten milligrams midazolam," Midoriya called out to the others before contemplating what Sprite had relayed about the barbiturates disappearing. "Ten milligrams diazepam on standby." Just in case benzodiazepines start disappearing too.
The room let out a collective breath as the seizures didn't resume. Midoriya sighed, rubbing his brow in a futile attempt to ease the tension headache building there, swallowing to remove the blood collecting in the back of his throat. Mei's not wrong. It really seems to be one thing after another lat-
The screaming started soon after and the room was right back on edge. His employees grabbed morphine as he called for it. Uraraka's eyes were open now as they bore into Midoriya's, her irises fluorescent pink and glowing. She sputtered and sucked in air between screams. She choked on the words as they came out, but out they came even as she screamed. "The void calls, and it's a call to return home. It wants you back."
Midoriya sucked in a breath even as his skin became clammy. Panic lanced through him as his senses screamed into overdrive, looking for any threat. "Oh Celestial Mother, infinite light of the world-" Again Midoriya sucked in a breath as Hatsume's head snapped to him, her mouth half opened in question before he came back to himself. His eyes wide, he shook his head at her. Later, he mouthed.
The screams became less and less common as he injected the morphine, which in turn became pained whimpers as Uraraka opened her eyes again. Her gaze darted around, catching the eyes of the workers before finally landing back on Midoriya. Her irises, blessedly returned to their normal brown, watered with misery, and Uraraka's voice croaked out, dry and ragged. "It- burns- hurts- I-"
"Shhh. You're alright, Uraraka. Everything's fine. You are awake a bit earlier than we expected, but everything is fine." Midoriya said it as much to calm Uraraka as to calm himself. Familiar words and familiar treatments. She whimpered again, and Midoriya winced. This was more than just a secondary nervous system to get used to, and it was more than simply getting used to new limbs. The nanites were still integrating. Still tearing apart pieces of her to replace with biomechanical bridges.
Quietly, Midoriya explained that they would be moving Uraraka to a proper hospital bed and wheeled the gurney over to it. When she just stayed curled in on herself without responding, he signaled for his other coworkers as they picked up the sheet and shifted her into the bed. Even that small movement was enough to send agony lancing through Uraraka's body. Midoriya carefully attached the equipment back to Uraraka, even as she cried at the contact. With orders to the division to do what they could to keep her comfortable, Midoriya turned his back on his classmate and left the lab.
…
Hatsume had followed him from the lab. She had followed him when he'd walked into the common area, the eyes of staff members on break tracking them across the room. She had followed him up the stairs, into the apartment hallways and then finally into his own apartment, but it wasn't until the door was closed behind them that Hatsume spoke. "What was that?"
"Uraraka wasn't supposed to wake up this early. When she did, the sudden impulse from the construction of the redundant nervo-"
"Not that, Izuku. I helped you design it. I can guess as to the seizures."
"Oh, the screaming then. That's fairly ob-"
"Not that, either." Hatsume's flat expression turned into a frown. "You're avoiding the question. You know what I'm asking. That wasn't any language I've heard from you before."
Midoriya swallowed before turning to the woman. The panic had subsided, but the fingers of it still scratched at his psyche, begging to reassert itself. "Do you remember the dual encryption cypher I showed you for our more sensitive projects?"
Hatsume's brows scrunched. "Of course I remember it. We use it constantly, and it took me weeks to learn."
"Yeah, well, there's a good reason for that. That was the spoken form of one-half of the encryption."
Hatsume was confused for half a second before the realization struck her. "The cypher is using languages from your time on the other side."
Midoriya winced. "I really wish you wouldn't call it that. You make it sound like I was dead."
"Well, you did die."
"Not helping, Mei."
"Right. But what caused that reaction? I've never heard you speak…," Hatsume paused, searching for a name and realizing that she had never gotten one, "whatever that language is. Was it what Uraraka said? You know as well as I do that she isn't lucid. Beyond even the amount of drugs in her system, we both know drug interactions can cause insane shit. Hell, just the combination of midazolam and morphine can cause-"
"I've heard those words before, Mei." Something in Midoriya's tone had Mei shutting up. It was cold and clipped with the tinge of shadowed memories. "The acolytes of the Black Tower would say things like that when they were dying." Midoriya gritted his teeth, clenching his fists, even as he stared at the floor. "When we turned into monsters to fight monsters and butchered them in their homes."
Hatsume's voice was soft then, hesitant to speak of things she didn't know of. "You were fighting a war, Izu." She placed her hand on his bicep. "Besides, Black Tower? Sounds pretty evil to me."
Midoryia's laugh wasn't a happy one. It was a bark that was more misery than amusement. "It was called that because the damn stone was a gabbro and basalt mixture. They were gods damned civilians, Mei. Librarians, archivists, scribes that had foresight magic. We butchered them because they were a threat to our plans."
"Woah woah woah, back up. Magic? Wait no. Not important at the moment. I'm confused. If they were a bunch of clerks, then why were they spouting off about the void?"
Midoriya groaned and paced away, head in his hands, before plopping down into a seat. "That's two complicated questions I don't really want to cover."
Hatsume shifted and sat down beside him. "We have time. It'll be a good few hours before Uraraka adjusts and isn't practically catatonic."
"Assuming she doesn't lose her mind," Midoriya muttered darkly. He sighed. "The Holy Pantheon is one of the only things the human race shared amongst itself. The void was," Midoriya paused for a long moment. "A topic in its scripture." Hatsume didn't push him on it. For now, at least.
"As for magic, I suppose the word's a bit of a misnomer. It was more ritualistic, borrowing on the power of extraplanar entities, using a set of actions. We called it magic because, frankly, it was pretty magical. But besides that, mythology always indicated that sometime before, there had been something closer to what we call magic, but-" Midoriya looked up to find Hatsume staring blankly at him, as if he'd grown a second head. He sighed again. "Where did I lose you?"
"Extraplanar entities."
Midoriya cursed under his breath. At least it's Mei I'm explaining this to. "Human belief is a very strong thing, Mei," Midoriya explained. "You get enough people believing the same thing hard enough and poof. They aren't gods, per say. Outside of their realms, they have almost no power."
"And inside of them?"
"There, they practically are gods, able to bend and shape reality to their will."
Hatsume tilted her head while her nose scrunched up in that cute way Midoriya was so used to. "What else do you know about these entities?"
Midoriya rubbed his eyes. "Unfortunately, sweet fuck all. That's about all I was able to glean from the Elysium Installation records. There was plenty of documentation theoretically, but files were damaged. Hard copies were destroyed. Frankly, I'm lucky there was enough to piece together that The Cataclysm and The Armont Crisis the facility was built to research weren't the same thing."
"You aren't telling me something here, Izu. How does this relate to Uraraka?"
"I'm not telling you a lot of things, Mei. Some things are better forgotten and left buried. As for Uraraka, well, I don't like the thought, but she seems to be more attuned to the veil than others. Which, for the earth, is saying something. She's the first I've met here like that. She should be fine as long as no one teaches her to make use of that particular trait, and since no one except for me could even begin to do so…"
Midoriya trailed off, leaving the two of them in silence. Midoriya to contemplate the philosophical nature of things and Hatsume to absorb the conversation. It was several moments before Hatsume's nose scrunched again and her eyes widened in excitement. "Wait. WAIT. You said the human race shared. Were there others? Were there elves?"
Midoriya thought back to the fae he had encountered, as well as the singular half-elf. He groaned again before dragging the word theoretically out. Hatsume squealed.